On a week marking the start of the battle of Britain we have a report from Ross Paton (whose father was a spitfire pilot) on a recent related outing.

"On July 10th I attended the annual Flying Legends air display at the Imperial War Museum’s Duxford airfield near Cambridge. It was a baking hot day and the flying was a treat with vintage aircraft galore. The sight and sound of these aircraft roaring over the field is breath-taking - still so fast and powerful even now when the men who flew them in anger are no longer with us or in old age.

I stayed in Steeple Morden, site of the USAAF memorial pictured. Nearly 250 men are on this memorial all of whom died over Europe in the space of 2 years. South East England is littered with former airfields like this, now returned to agriculture".